Weeks 7-9 The Power and Precision of the Word

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Required Reading:

• Sample Rhetorical Précis
• TED The Linguistic Genius of Babies
• Bonobos
• Pablo Neruda The Word
• What's in a Word? Language may shape our thoughts
• 20/20 segment on Linguicism
• Richard Lederer "English is a Crazy Language" (example)
• "Mother Tongue" Amy Tan
  • Amy Tan on Creativity
• Does the term "man" include all human beings?
• How Connotation Costs Women Jobs, Promotions
• "To Swear Is Human, and at least for Some, to Curse is Divine", NY Times
• Emily Bernard "Teaching the N-Word"
• "Who Can Say Nigger?" Randall Kennedy, Journal of Blacks in Higher Ed. Vanderbilt Lecture
• Gloria Naylor "A Question of Language"
• TED James Geary on Metaphor
• The World of Doublespeak by William Lutz

Tannen

Supplemental Reading:

• Metaphors We Live By by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson
• HS Student Analogies and Metaphors
• Steven Wright Quotes 1
• Steven Wright Quotes 2
• Steven Wright Quotes 3

Supplemental Viewing:

• Victor Borge Phonetic Punctuation
• Victor Borge Inflationary Language
• savethewords.org
• Better Off Ted episode The Impertence of Communicationizing (stream on netflix)
• "Mensa Invitational"
• Monty Python's The Argument Clinic
• Tannen on The Colbert Report Believes Hillary Clinton is judged more harshly because she's a woman
• Deborah Tannen's Homepage
• Audio of Tannen and Lutz on Political Language
• The Lost Art of Democratic Debate TED Talk
• TED Jane Goodall on how all that separates us form the apes is sophisticated language